Linsanity was over in Houston before it started

Point guard went from being face of franchise to part-time starter

Point guard Jeremy Lin never could live up to the hype and expectations that followed him to Houston from his time with the Knicks after the Rockets signed him as a free agent in 2012.

Point guard Jeremy Lin never could live up to the hype and...

For 31/2 months in the summer and early fall of 2012, point guard Jeremy Lin was the face of the franchise - the leading edge in a wave of change the Rockets hoped would build toward a new era of playoff success.

And the waves kept coming - James Harden in October 2012, Pat Beverley in January 2013 and Dwight Howard in July 2013.

But those arrivals had, by this summer, reduced Lin from franchise face to placeholder status, with his uniform number dangled as bait for free agent Carmelo Anthony as the Rockets plotted their next roster move.

On to Los Angeles

And now his departure, in a trade with the Los Angeles Lakers completed Friday, will be his final footnote in Houston as part of the team's failed bid to lure Chris Bosh from Miami.

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"The Harden wave just swamped him," television analyst and former Rockets player Matt Bullard said. "When the Rockets signed Lin, they had no idea they would be able to get Harden. And so his time here in Houston has been as a building block, but one under a bright spotlight, even unfairly so."

Lin, arguably, never was bigger in Houston than during the weeks before he hit the floor at Toyota Center. Acquired as a free agent after the Rockets traded Kyle Lowry and lost Goran Dragic to free agency, he was front and center in the Rockets' preseason "A New Age" ad campaign and in the first wave of Comcast SportsNet Houston launch ads but was supplanted when the team traded for Harden shortly before the regular-season opener.

The 6-3 Lin averaged 13.4 points and 6.1 assists during the 2012-13 season, including a slot before the home crowd at the Skills Challenge during All-Star Weekend at Toyota Center and, along with center Omer Asik, was the only player to start all 82 regular-season games.

After a slow start (with single-digit point production in 12 of his first 23 games), he closed with a run of 20 double-digit games in the Rockets' final 24 games of the season, including a three-game run in March with 20 or more points.

But he was held in check by Oklahoma City's Russell Westbrook in Game 1 of the playoffs and suffered a bruised chest muscle in a Game 2 collision with Thabo Sefolosha. He did not play in Games 4 and 5, both of which the Rockets won with new fan favorite Beverley and returning favorite Aaron Brooks in leading roles, and managed just three points in 13 minutes in the season-ending loss to the Thunder.

Lin got off to a quicker start in 2013-14, with back-to-back 30-point performances against Toronto and Philadelphia in November but missed six games in December with injuries and then had back spasms that sidelined him for much of the month.

He recorded a triple-double in February against Cleveland, but that was one of just three double-digit assists games on the season as he dropped to 33 starts on the year and his average dropped to 12.5 points and 4.1 assists.

In the playoffs, he averaged 11.3 points off the bench in the six-game loss to Portland.

No. 7 was final snub

Then came the offseason reports of more player movement, capped by the Rockets' use of his uniform No. 7 in a Toyota Center display welcoming Anthony to town.

Lin, 25, responded, on Twitter, with a quotation from Luke 6:29: "If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them."

That exchange, Bullard said, in part demonstrated Lin's singular depth of character, which, combined with his ethnic origins as the first Taiwanese-American player in the NBA and his white-hot "Linsanity" breakout season with the Knicks in 2011-12, arguably has pushed his popularity beyond his accomplishments.

"Jeremy has fought against getting cut at every level he's played," Bullard said. "When you battle for as long as he has, it makes you strong. He arrived here with a lot of expectations, and he has a lot of fans around the world that are Jeremy Lin fans before they are Rockets fans. That has hardened him in the fires of his career."

Although Lin leaves Houston without a comparable period of "Linsanity" to match his time in New York, Bullard said the Lakers are getting a better player than the one who arrived in Houston two years ago.

"He is very realistic about what he is good at and what his weaknesses are," Bullard said. "He has really worked on his jump shot and his left hand. He can go on to be a better player. He handles these things well."